In recent years, the use of chemical leaching to recover minerals such as precious metals from low grade ores has grown. For example, caustic cyanide leaching is used to recover gold from low grade ores having about 0.02 ounces of gold per ton. Such leaching operations are typically carried out in large heaps. The mineral bearing ore from an open pit mine is crushed to produce an aggregate that is coarse enough to be permeable in a heap but fine enough to expose the precious metal values such as gold in the ore to the leaching solution. After crushing, the ore is formed into heaps on impervious leach pads. A leaching solution is evenly distributed over the top of the heaps by sprinklers, wobblers, or other similar equipment at a rate of from about 0.003 to 0.005 gallons per minute per square foot. As the barren leaching solution percolates through the heap, it dissolves the gold contained in the ore. The liquor collected by the impervious leach pad at the bottom of the heap is recovered and this "pregnant solution" is subjected to a gold recovery operation. The leachate from the gold recovery operation is held in a barren pond for reuse.
Economical operation of such heap leaching operations requires that the heaps of crushed ore have good permeability after being crushed and stacked so as to provide good contact between the ore and the leachate. Ores containing excessive quantities of clay and/or fines (i.e., 30% by weight of -100 mesh fines) have been found undesirable due to their tendency to slow the percolation flow of the leach solution. Slowing of the percolating flow of leach solution can occur when clay and/or fines concentrate in the center of the heap while the large rock fragments tend to settle on the lower slopes and base of the heap. This segregation is aggravated when the heap is leveled off for the installation of the sprinkler system that delivers the leach solution. This segregation results in localized areas or zones within the heap with marked differences in permeability. The result is channeling where leach solution follows the course of least resistance, percolating downward through the coarse ore regions and bypassing or barely wetting areas that contain large amounts of clay and/or fines. Such channelling produces dormant or unleached areas within the heap. The formation of a "slime mud" by such fines can be so severe as to seal the heap causing the leach solution to run off the sides rather than to penetrate. This can require mechanical reforming of the heap. The cost in reforming the heaps which can cover 160 acres and be 200 feet high negates the economics of scale that make such mining commercially viable.
In the mid-1970's, the United States Bureau of Mines determined that ore bodies containing high percentages of clay and/or fines could be heap leached if the fines in the ore were agglomerated. The Bureau of Mines developed an agglomeration process in which crushed ore is mixed with Portland Cement at the rate of from 10 to 20 pounds per ton, wetted with 16 to 18% moisture (as water or caustic cyanide), agglomerated by a disk pelletizer and cured for a minimum of 8 hours before being subjected to stacking in heaps for the leaching operation. When processed in this manner, the agglomerated ore was found to have sufficient green strength to withstand the effects of degradation caused by the heap building and leaching operations.
In commercial practice, the method developed by the United States Bureau of Mines has not met with widespread acceptance because of the cost and time required. However, the use of cement, as well as lime, as agglomerating agents is known. Agglomerating practices tend to be site specific and non-uniform. Typically, the action of the conveyor which moves the ore from the crusher to the ore heaps or the tumbling of ore down the conical pile is relied on to provide agglomeration for a moistened cement-ore mixture. Lime has been found to be less effective than cement in controlling clay fines. It is believed this is because the lime must first attack the clay lattice structure in order to provide binding.
Cement has been found to be most effective in high siliceous ores (crushed rock) and noticeably less effective in ores having a high clay content. With the growth of such mining methods, the need for cost effective, efficient agglomerating materials has grown.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an agglomerating agent for use in the heap leaching of mineral bearing ores which improves the permeability of the heap.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an agglomerating agent for use in heap leaching of mineral bearing ores which eliminates or reduces ponding and channeling of the leach solution.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide an agglomerating agent for use in heap leaching of mineral bearing ores which improves ore extraction from material having a size of less than about 50 microns.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide an agglomerating agent which allows finer crushing of the mineral bearing ore without a deleterious influence on percolation rate of leach solution through ore heaps.